Toothman enters plea before Judge Hummel

January 18, 2012

Joshua Toothman appeared in Tyler County Circuit Court Friday with his attorney, John Gainer, to answer multiple felony charges.

Toothman, age 26, of Friendly, was arrested in March, 2011 in connection with an attempted break-in at HPS Pharmacy in Sistersville. Charged with one felony count of breaking and entering and one felony count of destruction of property stemming from the incident, Toothman failed to appear in court for purposes of entering an agreed plea in August, 2011.

As a result, Judge David W. Hummel, Jr., issued a capias warrant for Toothman's arrest. He was eventually apprehended in Oklahoma in October, 2011 and extradited to Tyler County to answer the pending charges. A $50,000 professional bond was ordered by the court.

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Joshua E. Toothman

The indictments were consolidated at a previous hearing on the State's motion. After consulting with his attorney, Toothman requested to enter a guilty plea without an agreement to the June indictment, but did not wish to plead guilty to the charge of failure to appear.

Prosecuting attorney D. Luke Furbee objected, arguing the charges were already consolidated with no objection from Toothman, therefore the plea must be entered for all or none of the charges.

Judge Hummel sustained Furbee's objection and told Toothman, "It's all or nothing."Toothman's attorney then requested another recess in the proceedings. After consultation, Gainer informed the court Toothman pleaded guilty to all charges (felony breaking and entering, destruction of property, and failure to appear) and the plea was accepted by the judge. A pre-sentencing report was ordered by the court.

Toothman will appear for sentencing at a later date. He was remanded to North Central Regional Jail following the hearing.

Timothy Nottingham, who was indicted in October, 2011, appeared before the court with his attorney, John Gainer, to answer charges alleging the defendant had committed several felony and misdemeanor crimes concerning property in Tyler County. Nottingham had already been sentenced in December to a period of not less than one nor more than ten years in Wetzel County Circuit Court on similar charges.

Judge Hummel entertained a motion by the State requesting a ruling on the voluntariness of statements Nottingham made to Sheriff's Deputy D.S. Dalrymple in August, 2011. Before Dalrymple could testify to the defendant's statements, defense counsel advised the court Nottingham would stipulate to the admissibility of the statements.

Originally scheduled for a trial date of Jan. 19, the case was continued into the next court term in favor of a request by the defense counsel. The State did not object to the continuance and noted there were nearly 30 witnesses for the prosecution and the trial would likely take two days or longer to prosecute.

Nottingham's case will be returned on March 1 for further proceedings. The defendant was remanded into the custody of NCRJ following the hearing.

Craig Bassett and Charles Himmelrick also appeared in court to face charges concerning their alleged involvement with Timothy Nottingham's alleged property crimes against Larry Rice in July, 2011. Bassett and Himmelrick, who were indicted on charges of breaking and entering and grand larceny, both entered guilty pleas to the court per a plea agreement in which each defendant will testify against Nottingham. Both received a sentence of two terms, not less than one nor more than 10 years, to be served concurrently. The sentences were suspended in favor of two year supervised probation, conditional on fulfillment of their obligation to give truthful testimony, and ordered to each pay $2,433.33 to the victim in restitution.

Jason Young and Steven Weekley also appeared in front of Judge Hummel on Friday to enter guilty pleas to charges of misdemeanor petit larceny regarding their involvement in stealing scrap metal from Precision LLC in September, 2011.

The State made reference to the fact that an employee of the company had given permission to remove some of the scrap metal from the premises, but not the amount the defendants had in their possession. Both Young and Weekley were sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay $150 in fines, (the value of the scrap metal), sentence suspended. Judge Hummel then placed both defendants on one year supervised probation, following serving actual confinement of 30 days in NCRJ.